The Phantom Chronicles
by Newgredips
Summary: It's been two years since Danny got his powers and the team has been on the receiving end of some pretty nasty fights. As of late the ghost community has been eerily quiet, when Danny and his friends venture deep into the ghost zone to use a new found island as a practice field for developing Danny's powers and come upon a new evil. This one might be too much for the ghost boy.


**So, I am not an expert writer. I read more than I write and even then my grammar is still shaky at best. Now, English is my first language so, I won't be so horrible that readers won't want to give me a chance (I hope). But I will be re-reading the pages I post, so that I can catch any typos or if the dialog could be better. Please leave me comments so that I can improve the story!**

 **Without further ado I give you**

 **THE PHANTOM CHRONICLES.**

* * *

"I don't know Sam, I don't think he should do it," a doubtful Tucker expressed as his two best friends grew closer to the odd island they had come across.

In the weeks before, Danny, Sam, and Tucker had been mapping out more and more of the ghost zone. They had finally finished mapping out the lairs of the Ghost King and Clockwork (with Clockwork's explicit permission of course). After nearly falling into the carnivorous beak of a giant ghost squid, the teens landed harshly in the great oak tree at the edge of the unknown island. None of them had ever seen plant life so intricate in the Zone before. The color of the leaves glowed with a thin line of gold. The body of the foliage was a deep forest green, even though the veins of the leaves carried the same golden glow as the surrounding aura. When Danny had gotten out of the specter speeder to dislodge them from the tree, it began to glow a few shades brighter. Of course the group of teenagers didn't notice the iridescent glow slowly increasing as Danny got closer.

"Hey, check this place out guys!" Sam held her hands up to the glass as Danny lowered the speeder onto the ground below the canopy of the great oak. Sam nearly knocked Tucker over in her race to get a closer look at the stone.

"Man, this place is too creepy. I mean look at the weird stone in the center of the field. It's giving me the willies." Tucker edged closer to the great stone in the center of the island.

"Oh come on Tucker, Danny! You should come check this out!" Sam was already kneeling over the massive stonework.

As soon as Danny landed, he felt as if something was off. It was hard to describe, like the longer he was on the platform the more intense the feeling got. He didn't like it. The energy that was coming from whatever was (or had been) there was making him start to panic.

"Guys, I think we should leave. I'm not liking the way this place feels. Sam! Don't touch the stone!" His legs turned into a tail as he flew to Sam, grabbing her hand before she could do any damage.

"Ow! Danny, what is with you? It's just a carving."

"I'm telling you that you shouldn't touch it. I don't know why, but whatever is here is giving me bad vibes. It's…" Danny couldn't even finish the thought. "Let's just go, it's starting to get late anyway. My parents are probably starting to worry, and so are yours."

Danny went back to the speeder and started the engines. He had never gotten this way about anything in the ghost zone before, and he couldn't really describe what was making him want to leave so badly. It ... it was as if the ghost half of him was fighting to pull him out of the area. Like he was being reduced to the base instinct of fight or flight. Danny could feel the core of his being in complete turmoil, and it was freaking him out. He needed to get away from whatever was causing the reaction. Of course Danny's human side wasn't going to just leave his friends to fend for themselves in the Ghost Zone. He watched as Sam brushed off an in-ground flat headstone beside the circular seal.

"What is that?" asked Tucker as he walked up and peeked over her shoulder. "Some kind of memorial stone?"

"No, I think it's a warning… I can't read the inscription though. It's in some kind of ancient language." Sam pulled out her phone and snapped a picture of the odd head stone and of the massive seal as well. She would have to do some research later to try and figure out what the words meant, and if they had any bearing on the way Danny was acting.

Tucker turned to head back to the speeder. He had never seen Danny so skittish, and honestly, it scared him. Danny was one of the strongest ghosts Tucker had ever known, yet a piece of ectoplasmic rock made him actually turn white as a ghost. Tucker looked up at Danny as he approached the speeder. Danny looked miserable, his forehead was dotted with beads of sweat and his eyes were... They looked dimmer than usual, as if he was losing the energy he needed to maintain his ghost form.

"Sam, let's go, Danny looks like he could fall over at any moment," Tucker badgered Sam, an,d she reluctantly came back to the speeder.

"I do not," Danny said passively as the three of them filed into his dad's flying machine, and he receded into his human form.

The ride home was a quiet one. Danny had his head leaning on Sam's shoulder and had closed his eyes. His body hurt all over, but he started feeling better knowing that he was on his way home.

Sam watched him as he nodded off. She didn't want to admit it, but Tucker was right. Danny looked like he had just finish a fight with his future self all over again. He had stopped sweating and his face wasn't twisted as though every breath was strenuous. This brought her some relief. She pulled out her phone and opened the photos that she had taken earlier. She couldn't understand why Danny had such a hellish reaction to just being near the stone. The more she looked at the inscriptions the more she started to recognize a few of the symbols. She asked Tucker for his phone, so that she could start looking up the symbols and figure out what exactly was written on the stone. After a few Google searches she started to find some similar images to what was etched into the smaller headstone. Most of it was Nordic, as if the ones who created the seal were from that time. Then the next layer was a mix between what looked to be ancient Hebrew and Egyptian, as if it had been revised or re-written to add those unable to read ancient Nordic.

Before long they had reached the portal that led into Danny's house. To open it from the inside of the ghost zone, Danny had put a DNA lock on the door that could sync up to a reader inside the speeder. A moment later they were back in his parents' lab, and Sam was waking Danny.

"Hey, we're back." Sam nudged Danny awake using the her knuckles. He sighed as he sat up and started to scoot himself out of the speeder.

When Danny had gotten his half asleep feet under him, he pulled out his phone to check the time: 8:30 p.m. Sam got out last still looking at her and Tucker's phones as the tired striplings head up the stairs and into the kitchen of Danny's house. The kitchen, which smelled of chicken broccoli and cheese casserole, was set up simply with appliances against the main wall and lightly colored cabinets hugging the free space on the wall. Jazz was sitting at the breakfast table with her laptop sitting in front of her. She perked up as they entered the room.

"You guys were gone for a long time. How'd it go? Find anything new?" she asked, while moving her computer, so the others could sit at the table.

"Well, we finished mapping the Ghost King's lair, which tried to kill us. Again. Then we got lost trying to run from a hungry ghost squid and landed on this weird island. You know, the usual," Tucker said nonchalantly.

"That island wasn't just weird, dude. I could feel how dangerous it was," Danny said as he sat and tilted his head resting against the back of the chair. As he thought back to it, chills ran from his chest and to his arms and legs. " You know what? I'm tired, I'm gonna go ahead and turn in. You guys can leave whenever you want. I just want to go to my room," Danny said as he suddenly pushed back on the table, making his chair screech in protest of the sudden friction. He rubbed his forehead as if to ward off a headache when he walked around the corner and up the stairs.

Those still left in the kitchen watched him go with concern written on each of their faces. Danny almost never just let them see themselves out. He would normally at least give them a formal goodbye before retiring to his room. No, Sam couldn't wait to figure out whatever was scribed on the grounded head stone.

When Danny got to his room, he shed his shoes and started undressing to change into a pair of comfy sweats. As he took off his shirt, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. His body was lean, and showed his ribs, but he was still muscular. A few bruises had started appearing on his right side from being thrashed by the giant ghost squid hours earlier. He continued to do a small inventory on the purple discolorations on his arms and back as was usual for him to do after any type of confrontation. Danny would tell himself that it was so he could keep track of the bruising, but it wasn't the complete truth. If Danny were to be honest with himself, he was coming up with stories so that he could ward off unwanted attention in case someone were to see the injuries he had received from his skirmishes. His chest ached with a dull throb that made it marginally painful to breath. He rubbed the tough spot gingerly. It didn't appear to be bruised, but, man, did it hurt as if he did. As he finished changing, a knock at his door came hesitantly.

"Come in," he said with his back turned, as he put his day clothes in the laundry bit inside his closet.

"Hey, I just wanted to check on you before we both went to bed." Jazz shadowed his doorway. She didn't step completely into the room simply because she didn't want him to think her as meddling in his ghost activities. (And there was a slight possibility that she had brought him the supper he had so blatantly dismissed)

Danny seemed to wait for her to continue, as he stood at his closet picking out a suitable T-shirt for bed.

Jazz continued, "You just seemed agitated in the kitchen, and I know chicken broccoli is one of your favorite dinners so," and with a slight flair of dramatics she pull a plate out from behind her back. A hopeful smile planted on her face as she watched Danny's face for a reaction.

Danny turned back to the interior of his room with a worthy shirt in hand. When he saw the hardy plate of food, he smiled sadly. Angry at himself for being so temperamental, he took the plate in hand.

"Thanks Jazz, I don't know what came over me earlier."

"Anytime little brother, and don't worry about whatever it was you saw today. Let that be something you figure out tomorrow." Jazz handed him the plate. "Goodnight."

"Night." She shut the door as Danny set himself up at his desk and took a bite of cheesy goodness.


End file.
